


Patience

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life, Part 2 [16]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 11:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11896527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Fox will bring them home ...





	Patience

Innocently mowing the lawn, Scully looked up at Betty and waved as the older woman made her way quickly across the street. Seeing what she took as a frantic face and not a happy to see you face, Scully cut the motor, “everything okay?”

Betty walked quickly past her, taking Scully’s arm as she did, “you haven’t watched the news, have you?”

Without question, Scully pulled herself from Betty’s and tore up the front steps, banging through the screen door, “Mom?! Mom? Turn on the news.”

Maggie, settled on the couch, scrambled for the remote, fumbling as she tried to find a local station.

Then the world shrank to the house, the living room, the television and Scully’s darting eyes, taking in the coverage of the destruction of half the Hoover building, the adjacent structure, the street between and what looked to be smoke choking the entire scene. Before she knew she was moving, she had keys in hand, turning to Betty, “can you stay with mom?”

Before Betty could say ‘yes’, “Dana?! Stop!”

“Mom, I need to go find them! What if they’re in that?” Housekeys and car keys now digging their imprint into her palm, knuckles white with stress, “I need to go find them!”

Trying to keep her daughter looking at her, maintain eye contact, “Dana, wait! It’s almost five. They were coming home at five. They may be on their way already. If you go down there, you’ll miss them. Please, give it a little while.”

Scully truly couldn’t believe what she was hearing, “how can you be so calm!? How can you tell me to sit here when you’ve got five kids possibly buried under rubble?”

With a deep breath, “I am so scared right now, I can barely breathe but from what the news is saying, you can’t get anywhere near there and if you miss them, Fox will get here and then go try to find you and it will be even more of a nightmare.” Pulling out her mother voice which she’d only used maybe three times in Scully’s lifetime, “Fox has them … now sit down.”

Fighting logic with emotion, she kept her keys in her hand and parked herself by the door instead, able to see the news coverage while surveying the street and drive. Attempting to dial Mulder every minute, the busy signal drove her anxiety through the roof, her blood pressure going with it.

She made it 43 minutes until she slammed her hand against the wall by the door, “God Dammit! Where are they!?”

Maggie was beside herself as well, as the news became bleaker, bodies beginning to be pulled from the wreckage and she jumped when Scully banged the wall, “Dana!”

“Mom, I can’t sit here and wait anymore!”

“You have to. They will be home so will you please just be quiet!”

Reprimand was not something she usually received from her mother and it got her to stay still another six minutes until the phone rang in her hand. Nearly dropping it in surprise, she listened through the crackling reception to hear someone faintly telling her Mulder was on his way home. She had no idea who it was and caller ID wasn’t showing up but she heard clear enough that Mulder was coming home.

She slumped against the wall, face automatically aimed to the street as she answered her mother’s barely heard, “was that Fox?”

“No but it was someone telling me they’re coming home. Maybe it was Skinner, maybe it was Frohike, I have no idea but they said he was coming home.” She stopped talking then, stopped listening to the horror on the television, pinpoint focus aimed on the quiet street before her.

&&&&&&&&&&

It took another 23 minutes but suddenly, there was a van pulling in the drive, Scully out the door like a shot, jumping down steps and pulling open doors, catching distraught children in hugs as they somberly climbed from the vehicle.

And then Mulder emerged, a disheveled, smoke-stained, bundle of nervous panic …

And then he saw her.

He would have pulled her to a hug but her hands on his cheeks pulled him in for a kiss first, a crushing, sobbing, mess of a kiss that made his knees weak and the day catch up to him. Skinner witnessed the embrace and breathed a little easier for a moment … he’d gotten Mulder back to her in one piece.

Mulder and five kids.

He dropped his head to the back of the seat, watching and knowing this could possibly the last happy thing that would happen to him for weeks. Debating whether he could slip away unnoticed, Scully leaned through the open door and planted a kiss on his cheek, “come inside, sir, have some water.”

Reality yet again, “I can’t. I need to get the van back to Frohike, then go down to the site.”

Sympathizing, she settled her hand heavy on his shoulder, “you need five minutes, Walter. Come inside, please. Show my mother you’re okay.”

&&&&&&&&&&&

They sat up the rest of the night, Mulder holding Betsy, Scully with Toby and the other three piled between Skinner and Maggie. It had been Sam who convinced Walter to stay, the 10-year-old’s fingers curling into the towering man’s hand, using Betsy’s moniker for him, “don’t go back, Mr. Skimmer. Please?”

And he didn’t, not until hours later, after Maggie was finally in bed and all the kids but Sam were restlessly surveying dreamland, nightmares hovering, waiting, at the edges, eyes closed, pupils roaming. He’d left them, curled in various sized balls, Betsy on Mulder’s lap still and Toby burrowing into Mulder’s side, Jake and Hannah at the foot of the sofa bed while Sam and Scully walked him to the door.

An hour later, Sam had settled between Mulder and Scully, watching wide-eyed the television and its circle of speculation and blame, “When were mom and dad going to call again?”

They’d gotten through, via the cruise company, to let the beyond terrified parents know that all their children were well and accounted for, safe and sound. Not able to talk long, all at least got to hear an ‘I love you’ from their parents before they were able to fall to a half-dazed slumber. Sam had been their holdout, the one who, even after Walter finally slipped out the front door and the lights were off, had managed to keep his eyes open.

“Tomorrow, when they get on land, they’ll be able to talk again. Not for long but probably a little longer than this time.”

He didn’t seem to take much comfort in that, “will Mr. Skimmer be okay?”

Scully’d answered this question four times since the man left but patiently answering a fifth, “he’ll be fine. He’s going home to sleep then he’ll go to work in the morning. They’ll need him there but he’ll be careful. He promised, remember?”

Sam had made him swear to be safe and in solemnity, Skinner had complied, hugging the boy as he told him with all the conviction he could muster that he would indeed promise to watch out for himself. Sam let go of him then, watching out the front door window until Frohike’s van disappeared into the night and Scully scooted him from the tile towards the bed, locking the door after, “I know.”

“But you’re going to worry anyways?”

Nodding, Sam slid down the back of the couch, settling on a pillow, “can we turn that off now?”

Mulder switched the television off, dropping the room in a veil of darkness, a darkness that wasn’t quite as comforting today as it had been yesterday. Sam, however, didn’t seem to mind, “are you guys sleeping out here tonight?”

Knowing he needed to talk to Scully alone, Mulder rubbed the boy’s upper back for a moment, “we will but I need to go talk to your Aunt Dana in the kitchen for a few minutes, if that’s all right?”

Sam complied with a finally sleepy nod, “just … come back though.”

After rearranging everyone, tucking in, distributing covers, straightening necks, returning stray stuffed animals to owners, they slipped from the room, waiting until they were still within earshot but out of view of the room then Mulder grabbed Scully, crushing her to his chest, allowing her to mutter only half an incomprehensible syllable, “I’m not letting you go for at least five minutes so shut it and hug me, please.”

She didn’t argue, wrapping arms around waist and holding on tight. Five minutes turned into eight before, by some mutually agreed upon but totally unconscious decision, they slowly pulled apart, lips taking over where hugging limbs gave way. Finally, Mulder’s hand woven through her hair, thumb against cheek in a gesture that should have seemed trite but warmed him against the cold inhabiting his marrow since 4:38 that afternoon, “I love you.”

With a stubborn set of tears hanging on her lower lashes, she nuzzled his hand, her own occupied with gripping the bare skin of his sides under his shirt, “I don’t ever want to be that scared again.”

“I’ll do my best to steer clear of scary things from now on.”

Going back in for another marathon hug, “I love you, too.”

They didn’t talk of motives or plans, present circumstances and future speculations but stood in quiet, thoughts going no further than five safe children sleeping in the next room.

Until the softest sound of whimpering reached their ears and Scully sighed, Mulder dropping one last kiss to the top of her head, “I had hoped they’d be able to sleep.”

“Go on in and see who it is. I need some water and I’ll go check on Maggie, then be back, okay?”

Stopping in the kitchen door, she turned back to see Mulder reaching in the cupboard for a glass, mussed hair, wide back, world-weighted shoulders, bare feet, cut-off sweats. She tilted her head in a moment of life-affirming understanding, “Mulder?”

He glanced back at her, looking wearily adorable with shadowed eyes and a half-smile on his lips, “yeah?”

“Will you marry me someday?”

Remaining stationary, glass now in hand, he didn’t hesitate for a moment, “of course. Will you marry me back?”

Fingers on the doorframe, foot unconsciously rolling back and forth on toes, much like a third grader about to tell her favorite boy she liked him, Scully smiled with a radiant subtlety that could have melted the sun, “I will.”

And with that, she rotated, heading to comfort nightmares while Mulder moved to check on his eventual mother-in-law, whispering to himself in chanted intervals, “breathe!”


End file.
